Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Loving Our Own Reflection

"Mirror Pool"

- in a desert canyon -

I’ve been following the strident rhetoric in the recent congressional
standoff over heath care in the United
States. It strikes me that, what is going on in Washington DC may indeed be quite representative
of the state of the larger culture.

I am reminded of something sociologist Robert Bellah wrote
some 30 years ago in his book, Habits of
the Heart. At the time, Bellah observed
that our society was well on the way to becoming a collective of “rugged
individualists” as opposed to a “nation,” a community of people who devote
themselves for the welfare of the common good. Some thirty years later I fear
that Bellah was quite prophetic and I wonder if we have come to the place where we
are now a “collective of rugged individuals” rather than a civilized nation.

As the name implies, a “rugged individualist” is primarily
concerned about his/her own self-gratification. The life-agenda of the
individualist is personal gain, winning the argument, beating down an opponent, achieving
personal success and comfort at any cost. Yet, if we look at the record of history
we quickly discover that any society that ever devolved into a collective of rugged
individualists always unraveled and faded away.It makes me wonder if we may also be on that slippery slope heading
toward the dead end of cultural extinction.

The interesting thing about a society of “rugged individualists”
is that on the surface,it might look
like we are community of people who care for each other’s “good.”After all, it’s not as if individuals go off somewhere
to live alone in some mountain hermitage, most people hang out with lots of
other “like-minded” people. But if we scratch beneath the surface we may find that
we sometimes associate with others for some very selfish reasons. An “individual”
may “associate” with others because they believe the “other” might be able to help
them meet their own personal agenda. This
can happen in the halls of congress, in a church, a neighborhood, in a family, even
in a relationship with a friend or a spouse.

As I reflect upon it, I wonder how many people in today’s
society have fallen into the trap of fooling themselves into thinking that,
because they associate with others they are in relationships with them, when in
fact they may only be in a relationship with themselves, with their own ego?

I am reminded of something the monk and author, Thomas
Merton, once said:

The beginning of love is the will
to let those we love

be perfectly themselves,

the resolution not to twist them
to fit our own image.

If in loving them we do not love
what they are,

but only their potential likeness
to ourselves,

then we do not love them.

We only love the reflection of
ourselves we find in them.

This reminds of the ageless “Myth of Narcissus,” and the
deep insight it provides into a flaw of our human nature. Narcissus gazed into a reflecting pool and saw the image of
a beautiful, strong young man. He fooled himself into thinking he was seeing
someone else; but he was really only seeing himself- and he fell in love with
what he saw, in love with his own reflection.

In today’s society, so deeply plagued by “rugged
individualism,” we would all do well to guard against falling into the trap of “Narcissism”
– fooling ourselves into thinking we love others when in fact we only love
ourselves.

Lots of so-called “relationships” have conditional clauses attached
to them: “I will love you and will be in relationship
with you if you think and feel and act or look the way I want you to
think and act.” Often times this means, I
will be in relationship with you as long as you are a “copy” of me. As I look
at the state of our contemporary culture I wonder if The Myth of Narcissus
prevails perhaps more often than we might imagine?

About Me

I am a teacher, a writer, and a spiritual guide. I am an ordained Episcopal Priest and hold degrees in theology, philosophy, and communication. I am particularly interested in the common spiritual insights which the many various world religions share with one another.

My wife and I live in the beautiful desert in the Coachella Valley of Southern California.